A Failed State

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Just as you can abjure liquor for 30 years yet must still consider yourself an alcoholic, it turns out that the sting of underachievement, too, clings on like a barnacle. For a new self-help group for those who feel that they fail to achieve their potential (see Times2) is aping the formula minted by Alcoholics Anonymous and starting each of its meetings with attendees standing up in turn and declaring: “Hello, I’m John, and I’m an underearner.”

This group chooses to style itself Underearners Anonymous because its members measure out their underachievement in life not in coffee spoons but in